In 2003 the city council in Burlington, Vermont ĺ─ý the
stateĺ─˘s largest city -- established a ĺ─˙Blue Ribbon Committeeĺ─¨ to make
recommendations on possible improvements to the functioning and election method
of the city council. Composed of former city officials from across the political
spectrum, the committee issues a concise report in December 2003. The report
(which is available
for download) devotes several pages (pages 4-7) to the option
of implementing choice voting, a full representation election method that would
ensure that a large majority of voters would elect one of their favorite
candidates. The report concludes that:

ĺ─˙While there was significant
sentiment among the Committee members in favor of some change to the present
system, there was an equal division among Committee members as to what sort of
change should be madeĺ─Â..[One of these divisions] favored adopting ĺ─˙choice
votingĺ─¨ or ĺ─˙single transferable vote (STV),ĺ─¨ as used by Cambridge, MA.These Committee members noted that, according to the political science
literature reviewed, this voting method would maximize the criteria of voter
participation, representativeness, and voter choice that the Committee saw as
priorities.ĺ─¨

As background to this discussion, note that the Burlington
City Council is elected from seven wards in partisan elections, with two members
per ward. The Councilors are elected for two-year terms with overlapping terms
(one each year from each ward). The Mayor is elected for a three-year term. The
form of the city government is a modified ĺ─˙strong mayorĺ─¨ system in which
appointed citizen commissions oversee each city department, subject to the
orders of the city council, with department heads appointed by the mayor.